The late, great Dolly Parton found inspiration in her music at cemeteries

Dolly Parton died on August 25, 2026, at age 80. She was known as a prolific and skilled songwriter throughout her career where writing was actually the foundation of her success before she became a performer.

Dolly wrote “I Will Always Love You” and “Jolene” and co-wrote thousands of songs over her career, spanning country, pop, gospel, and bluegrass.

What many people don’t know is that some of that songwriting was born in cemeteries. The most widely cited account comes from a June 27, 1984 appearance on ABC’s Good Morning America, where host David Hartman asked Parton about her creative process. She described walking among headstones, reading names and dates, and imagining the lives behind them:

“I like to go sit under trees and things. I walk around and I read the stories and I get a lot of ideas of lives.”

“I imagine lives for all the people, you know, behind the stones there, and where they died and how they lived and if somebody was a little kid. And I get a lot of ideas.”

“It’s just a peaceful, beautiful place to go … I don’t hang out there at night.”

The habit stayed with her for decades. In a 2020 interview with Rolling Stone, she returned to the same theme:
“I love cemeteries… Really, I write in cemeteries a lot. Nobody bothers you there.”

Dolly Rebecca Parton was laid to rest beside her husband, Carl Dean beneath the Tennessee hills at Woodlawn Memorial Park. May other artists be inspired visiting cemeteries for inspiration.